Conventional internal combustion piston engines include multiple cylinder assemblies used to drive a crankshaft. In order to drive the crankshaft, each cylinder assembly requires fuel, such as provided by a fuel pump via a fuel injector. During operation, a spark plug of each cylinder assembly ignites a fuel/air mixture received from the fuel injector and causes the mixture to expand. Expansion of the ignited mixture displaces a piston of the cylinder assembly within a cylinder assembly housing to rotate the crankshaft.
Rotary engines have been conceived as a potential replacement for conventional piston engines. For example, rotary engines have been described in the art which include an engine housing having a circular bore, one or more valves moveable mounted within the bore, and a set piston rotatably disposed within the bore and connected to a driveshaft. During operation, as the driveshaft rotates, each valve is caused to open momentarily to permit a piston to pass the valve location in the engine housing. Once the piston rotates past the valve location, the valve closes to define a combustion chamber between the valve and a piston. A fuel injector injects a fuel-air mixture into the combustion chamber and is ignited via a spark plug. The pressure in the chamber caused by combustion of the fuel rotates the piston forward within the bore which, in turn, rotates the driveshaft.